Man..pine burns hot!

[HotCoals]

I had some pine boards in my basement that had to be 20 years old,so I figured if I have not used them yet why not burn them.
Stove was out for the first time this season but it was chilly at 8 this morning.
So I light up maybe 8 3/4 inch x 8 inch boards..diff lengths...maybe 10 -12 lbs.
It started out fine but maybe 10 mins into it ,it started going nuclear at any thing over 2 on the air .
You want to talk about fast heat..this was crazy!
I could not adjust it to just some flame..it was all or nothing it seemed.
I shut the air way down and the cat got red hot..I mean red hot..temp next to the prope on stove top was 750..I have never seen that before with my BK.
Thing I thought was strange was that pine made my glass dirty real fast..must be it was out gassing to fast for my cat to eat it?
Any ways..I was surprised as to the amount of heat it gave off for what little I had in there.
Anybody burn a lot of pine?

 

[bogydave]

Spruce, but close to the same but in splits no boards.
Burning it now,
So much surface area with boards, lots of off gassing & smoke.
Maybe you got it going to hot & raging when it started.
Next time "throttle up" slower & see if you better control.
My glass has been staying fairly clean. (cleaner than when burning birch)

 

[RNLA]

Most pine, even the really old boards you burned, has lots of oil or pitch whatever you call it. If you burn it it smokes black. Pine of any type typically does this, seasoned or not so seasoned. Most people say that pine causes more build up in the chimney. If you mix it in with other wood I see no difference...

 

[Mt Ski Bum]

Most pine, even the really old boards you burned, has lots of oil or pitch whatever you call it. If you burn it it smokes black. Pine of any type typically does this, seasoned or not so seasoned. Most people say that pine causes more build up in the chimney. If you mix it in with other wood I see no difference...

Maybe it's just me, but in my experience, boards don't seem to have nearly as much sap as logs/splits do... sap does burn hot, though.

 

[North of 60]

Anybody burn a lot of pine?

Just this little bit over winter.

 

[HotCoals]

Anybody burn a lot of pine?

Just this little bit over winter.

Wow.
You have no probs keeping it under control with your Princess?
Can you do 12 hour burns in the deep of winter?
How often do you clean your chimney?

 

[heatwise]

yep, thats good stuff. i call it rocket fuel. i have a rack with cedar and pine pieces finely split and this week i am splitting pine as well as oak and ash . its all getting stacked together mixed . im not turning down any variety and find it a pleasure to take whats available. pete

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

I also use pine and cedar spit small and stacked in my garage for firestarters and building a quick, hot fire. The key is it needs to stay bone dry. That's why it's in my garage and not out under the tarp with the rest of the wood.

 

[madrone]

Anybody burn a lot of pine?

Just this little bit over winter.

Wow.
You have no probs keeping it under control with your Princess?
Can you do 12 hour burns in the deep of winter?
How often do you clean your chimney?

Huge difference between kiln-dried boards and cord pine.

 

[Intheswamp]

Anybody burn a lot of pine?

Just this little bit over winter.

So ya'll had a mild winter, eh? :lol:
That's a lot of wood! I'm down in the deep south, but hopefully before long I'll be cutting a little pine for this (11/12) season. I need something fast drying and haven't came upon any ash yet.

Ed

 

[mecreature]

I have been burning a good bit of pine recently. maybe a half cord... Its about a year seasoned.. I have the same conclusions.. burns fast, hot and seems to dirty up the glass. I also burned a good chunk of kiln dried lumber.... just cause..

I just figured it was kind of wet still or I didn't have enough experience with my 7100 yet. Trying to back it off made it even worse.

just let it burn and enjoy the heat... you get some crazy good secondaries going.

All my pipes are new so the chimney clean will tell the story...

 

[Backwoods Savage]

HotCoals, you found out why pine was used a lot for cooking using the wood cook stoves. Quick hot fire, easy to adjust by how much wood is in the stove and it does not burn for long periods of time in the old cook stoves. For sure most used pine in the warmer months because they did not want the heat lingering too long.

 

[cmonSTART]

Anybody burn a lot of pine?

Just this little bit over winter.

Wow.
You have no probs keeping it under control with your Princess?
Can you do 12 hour burns in the deep of winter?
How often do you clean your chimney?

We routinely get 10 - 12 hour burns from pine in our Princess. The key is to use pine cordwood, not boards. And, larger pieces help. Pack the thing full on a good bed of coals, get the cat going, and cut it way back. I'll shut it down like this overnight and not load until well into the next morning.

 

[HotCoals]

Interesting, I guess if I run across downed pine in my travels I won't pass it up anymore.
During spring clean up around here there can be a lot of it out next to the road free for the taking..I always passed it up.

 

[North of 60]

Anybody burn a lot of pine?

Just this little bit over winter.

Wow.
You have no probs keeping it under control with your Princess?
Can you do 12 hour burns in the deep of winter?
How often do you clean your chimney?

Yes
Yes
and once a year.
Not much else to burn other than spruce and poplar.
30+ cords of pine through it so far and a few cords of spruce and poplar.

 

[HotCoals]

Still on the same cat North?
I know..I have to many questions. lol

 

[North of 60]

Still on the same cat North?
I know..I have to many questions. lol

Yes, and no indicators that would lead me to change it or remove it for a major soak and clean.
Its been vacuumed twice and brushed on the leading face twice a year. I let it go out in the middle of the season to do the light brushing that takes 4 seconds.
Yes these CAT stoves are a pain in the finicky arse. :lol:

 

[HotCoals]

Cool..lol.
I have not done a thing to mine but abuse it probably.
I'm shutting down after tonight ..soon I'll take it out and look at it.
Plus clean the chimney.
I'll let you know what I find.
It seems a little slower to light off and it used to go past the safe mark on the probe..now it just reaches the end of it at times.
When it did go over I would turn the blowers on for awhile...otherwise I don't use them much.

 

[billb3]

We burned the pine boards ( cut from the property - mill was a mile away) from a torn down barn that was about 35 years old.
That was some dry pine. Short fast hot fires. All the boards were "cut to length" with a maul. A saw just took too long. In '67 / '68. Often wished for an auger feed.

 

[burleymike]

I burn pine only and it does start easily and burn hot. The only thing it seems to do to my stove is leave a white haze on the glass. Once a week I have to wipe it off. When I split the wood I leave every other split as large as will fit in the stove. If it is split small it burns too fast for a good overnight burn.

 

[madrone]

When I split the wood I leave every other split as large as will fit in the stove.

+1

 

[Dieselhead]

you guys and your pine are crazy. your chiminey and house can burst into flames at any moment! :-o

 

[Dieselhead]

somebody had to say it

 

[Pagey]

Pine causes chimney fires. *smug look*

 

[joefrompa]

Pine is the fastest seasoning wood I've ever heard of on here, based upon my experiences with it. I'm guessing it's nearly fully seasoned in 3 months of air movement & sunshine. I've gotten 8-10 hour burns out of 15-20 pound chunks that were not fully seasoned in a non-cat stove with a good amount of air left in the stove. Granted, they don't coal up - but a large piece of the chunk will still be burning in the morning. I'm seasoning them fully this year, so my hope is they'll burn just as slow but keep the stove above 200 degrees even after 8 hours - my stove usually dipped down to 150-175 by morning with only pine.

I think pine does a bit better in free-standing stoves OR cat stoves. In free-standing stoves, you don't need a blower sucking the radiant heat off the stove and transferring it convectively. Pine can heat the stove up nice and hot and the surroundings can benefit through lasting radiance as the stove slowly cools. Whereas in an insert, the stove cools more rapidly (I think) and pine's fast burning nature requires more wood to be added sooner to keep the stove surface nice and hot. This is just a theory of mine. Radiant stoves aren't cooling due to air blowing right across their face (except when a blower is attached), so they cool slower from a stove-surface perspective.

In cat stoves, the slow-burning nature of the cat stove precludes this comment.